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Supply restrictions caused by a possible delay in restarting the cracker at its Texas facility forced LyondellBasell to declare a force majeure on U.S. olefins, market sources said. A company spokesman, however, denied any delays, saying that the site's
return to service "is still scheduled for February."

Related Summaries

The union strike at France's Fos-Lavera petrochemical terminal is dragging on, forcing refineries operated by ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell and Ineos to shut down or scale back production to minimal levels. The wide-scale union action is also hitting downstream users, as chemical makers experience a shortage of refined feedstock while some are declaring force majeure due to the lack of adequate petrochem supplies.

LyondellBasell has reportedly eased restrictions on its U.S. butadiene supply, entitling customers to 100% of minimum volumes for September contracts, after allowing only 85% in August because of a force majeure declaration at its Texas BD site. A market source, however, said it is unlikely that the increase in allocation can be attributed to an improvement at Lyondell's Texas site -- instead, a decline in demand is the reason. "Customer orders must be lower, allowing them to give 100% to all customers," the source said.

Shortages in methyl methacrylate and titanium dioxide feedstocks are reportedly resulting in tighter paint supplies that could last at least through June, leading to delays in U.S. highway construction. Such delays can be traced to force majeure declarations by major MMA producers Lucite and Dow Chemical. "This is an industrywide issue, and it is due to a combination of strong demand and planned and unplanned outages across many industry producers globally," a Dow spokeswoman said.

An outage at its Texas plant this week prompted ChevronPhillips Chemicals to declare force majeure on the U.S. deliveries of olefins, according to market sources. With only one of its three crackers operating, the facility is reduced to an annual capacity of about 670,000 metric tons.

Millennium Petrochemicals, a LyondellBasell unit, has declared force majeure on its vinyl acetate monomer production facility in La Porte, Texas, because of a compressor failure, according to a letter sent to its customers. The chemical maker has implemented a 50% sales allocation and expects to restart the unit by mid-to-late February, the letter said.